Decade of Iron and Blood
The Decade of Iron and Blood was a period of intense violence and upheavel in the Old World, in which no less than 8 wars broke out between various states in the power vaccum caused by the assassination of the Emperor of Gretia, Gaius Hamerian I, the collapse of the Knight's Templar a decade prior, and the collapse of the Kingdom of Imperia. The war was so bad, that it led to Sir Badger fleeing Acren, and indirectly caused the formation of the Empire of Kordowyn. In Gretia Emperor Gaius I had come to the throne after a coup against his half brother, Emperor Maximus II, who was rumored to be illegitimate and was extremely unpopular with the nobility. Gaius, the son of the Empress Consort Evelyn, Maximus II's mother and Queen of Sleipnir, was a popular figure. The son of a Templari'i Triarch, Gaius and his brother Joshua I reunified Sidonia through conquest in 1004, and he waged a decade long war against the Templar in Lirrach from 1017 to 1027 when the Templari'i were booted out of Lirrach. Gaius implemented democratic reforms and created the Gretian Parliament. In an effort to stablize the government, Gaius appointed Edmund Grey, the 1st Earl of Lier and a distant relative of the main Gretian Imperial family as Prime Minister in 1031. During a cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister stabbed the Emperor, who returned the favor before both succumbed to their wounds. Maximus II's much abused sister, Elizabeth, was proclaimed Empress by the Parliament. Gaius's first wife had been murdered by arson the week after his reign began along with their three month old son. He remarried to his dead brother's widow, Calindra Trudaene, who bore a son not long after her husband's death, and fled to Cholobagh. There in 1032, she rallied outer constituent realms to support her son's claim to the throne over Elizabeth, which was supported by the industrializing Lirrachan Republic due to Gaius's popularity as a liberator. In Lirrach The murder of the Emperor lead to the Murder of Emperor Maximus I's grandson, Rodric Taegren, Governor of Lirrach, and the declaration of Lirrachan Independence. Lirrach had been constructing ironhulk warships for Gretia for twelve years and controlled a large portion of the navy, and began attacking Elizabethan positions. Lirrachan forces temporarily took Greyborough and Utopia before the war stalled in 1033. In Cholobagh The High Jarl of Cholobagh name was losing his grip on reality, and in a hastily constructed fleet of ironclad warships, began raiding coastal settlements with every able bodied man pressed into service. While off crusading, the Cholobaghi suffered from a failure of government, and a worse than usual winter, which made them unable to resist the Lirrachan invasion in 1035. In Imperia The death of King Exagerus I and the greed of the House of Vienne from the eponymous Duchy within the falling Kingdom lead to a momentary break in the Gretian squabbles where upon one of their leaders tried to seize Imperia, and promptly got slapped by a Four-nation Alliance, sparking a period of about 50 years where the Imperian government was in anarchy. In Acren Sensing the weakness of the western states, the Pandrosi invaded Acren again after having forced it into being a tributary state a decade prior. By 1033 the situation was dire, and Sir Badger, who lead up a Government-in-Exile in Imperia, was forced to give up his fight to bring back Acrenian autonomy by the circumstances and decided to start a new elsewhere.